


we might live like never before

by tocourtdisaster



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Multi, Next Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-20
Updated: 2010-01-20
Packaged: 2017-10-06 12:32:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/53735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tocourtdisaster/pseuds/tocourtdisaster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Six looks into the lives of Lucy and Molly Weasley over ten years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we might live like never before

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not a huge fan of the post-DH interviews and, as such, I've picked and chosen which bits of information to keep and discarded the rest. This story doesn't intentionally contradict any information given in the books. Depending on your definition of canon, this story may or may not be viewed as AU. In my head!canon, Lucy and Molly Weasley are twins and a year younger than Victoire.
> 
> The title comes from "Delicate" by Damien Rice.

**hope is the biggest lie.**

Lucy Weasley shows her first sign of magic at the age of eight. The family all agree that it's a bit of a late start, but quite impressive. None of them have seen such a magnificent display of the Weasley temper mixed with wandless magic since Aunt Ginny Bat-Bogey Hexed Uncle Charlie when she was four after he tried to take away her train set.

Mum sends Lucy to her room after owling Gran Molly about it and then gets a step stool out of the linen closet. Mum's not short, but she needs the extra few inches to reach the cutlery that's embedded in the kitchen ceiling.

Molly watches her mother from her perch at the dining room table, feeling angry and not a little bit jealous. Dad takes her aside before bed that night, his hand gentle against the top of her head.

"You'll get your magic soon enough," he tells her as she slips between the sheets on her bed. He brushes some of her dark hair away from her face. "You'll see."

"Sure," Molly says and closes her eyes when Dad turns out the light. She's not sure he actually believes it any more than she does.

**sisters who never write back.**

The first person Lucy writes her first night at Hogwarts is Molly. She should write to her parents, let them know that she Sorted into Ravenclaw despite being a Weasley, but she finds herself writing _Dear Molly_ instead.

She gets up early the next morning and coaxes one of the school owls into taking her letter for her. She watches for Archimedes every morning at breakfast for a week, but he never comes.

A plain barn owl, one Lucy doesn't recognize, drops a letter onto her plate her third week at Hogwarts. The letter is from Dad, the owl one of the Ministry's. It's not a particularly chatty letter, but it _is_ rather informative. Molly's still trying to settle into her new school, Mum's taken a job copy-editing for the _Guardian_, and Dad's spending a lot of time at the office trying to deal with the influx of complaints following the new laws concerning dark creatures.

Lucy writes three letters that evening, one to each member of her family, the longest of which is addressed to Molly. Her parents write back, two different letters that arrive days apart.

Molly never writes back.

Things continue on like this for the rest of the fall. Dad always tries to include a little about Molly, though Lucy eventually realizes it's all superficial information that anyone might know, but never anything really personal. Mum never mentions Molly or Dad and never talks about anything that wasn't brought up by Lucy's last letter.

Molly never writes back.

Lucy tries not to be surprised when she goes home for Christmas to find that Dad's moved into a two room flat in Cambridge, the second bedroom set up like her old room, down to the posters on the walls and the books on the shelves. She sends Mum and Molly their Christmas gifts by Muggle post, includes a nice chatty letter and photos from her first term at school.

Mum sends a thank you card, but Molly doesn't send Lucy anything at all.

**the only permanence is death.**

Molly watches her parents' marriage fall apart after Lucy leaves for school. Dad starts spending more and more time at the office and Molly knows some of that is legitimate, but he can't be needed every night until well past the time Molly goes to bed. She might only be eleven, but she's not _stupid_.

Mum sits Molly down one night early in September and tells her about her new job, how she'll be gone during the day and won't be there when Molly gets home from school.

"I'm not a little kid anymore," Molly tells Mum, who smiles a bit, but doesn't say anything. "I can take care of myself for a few hours until you get home. Besides, I can always go over to Mrs. Appleby's if there's an emergency."

"So that's settled then," Mum says with a little laugh and Molly can't help but smile. It's been a long time since she's heard her mother laugh. "How about we go out to celebrate?"

"Japanese?"

"Of course," Mum laughs. That is the last good day for a long time.

Molly realizes towards the end of October that not only has she not seen her father in several weeks, she hasn't seen any trace of him in the house for at least two weeks, nor has there been any owl post, excepting letters from Lucy, for at least that long. She searches her parents' bedroom while Mum's still at work and finds Dad's clothes gone. His toiletries are gone from the bathroom. His office is empty.

It's November before Molly works up the courage to ask Mum about it.

"It's been coming to this for a long time, sweetheart," Mum tells her, resting her hand over Molly's. "I should have told you sooner, but I didn't think you'd notice. It's not like your father was home much before he actually moved out."

"What about Lucy?" Molly asks and still feels a sharp pang of jealousy in her gut when she thinks of her sister off at Hogwarts. She hasn't bothered to read any of the letters she's received and has no idea what Lucy might or might not know about their parents' marriage.

"Your father and I decided that it would be easiest for everyone if she lived with him when she's not at school," Mum says and the weight that had settled in Molly's gut lifts and she feels like laughing and twirling in joy.

That night, Molly helps pack up Lucy's bedroom. When she gets home from school the next afternoon, the bedroom is empty.

**firm as a habit.**

Lucy is fourteen before her dad finally sits her down and explains the divorce.

"It's not only because you and I have magic and your mother and sister don't, though that was a mitigating factor," he says, folding his hands together on the table. Lucy fidgets with the end of her braid where it hangs over her shoulder. "It's much more complicated than that."

"It always is," Lucy says, trying to keep the bitterness out of her voice. She knows that nothing is ever black and white and she's insulted that her father would think that of her.

"Do you know why your mother and I got married?"

Lucy blinks in confusion. "No."

"We loved each other, but it was also the smart thing to do," Dad says, staring at the table. "My mother was pressuring me to settle down. She wanted grandchildren, you know. Your Aunt Fleur was pregnant, but Mum never was happy unless she had a houseful."

Dad pauses and Lucy wants to ask him something, _anything_, but there's nothing to ask. She wants to make this easier on her father, but she just doesn't know how. It's the not knowing that's killing her.

"So your mum and I got married and then we had you and Molly, and we were happy, but we were never as happy as we could have been." Dad fixes he glasses unnecessarily and Lucy finds herself doing the same; it's a nervous tic she wishes she hadn't absorbed from him. "At first, your mum was fascinated by magic, but it wasn't long until she started to resent it. The longer we were together, the worse it got, especially after you showed signs of magic and your sister did not."

"So why didn't she ask for a divorce?" Lucy asks, hating herself when the question makes Dad cringe. "Why were you the one to leave?"

"I've no doubt she was working herself up to that." Dad still won't meet her eye. "I thought it best to leave when we could still end things fairly amicably."

"Amicably?" That's a load of rubbish if she's ever heard one. As far as Lucy knows, her parents haven't spoken since the divorce was finalized; Lucy hasn't heard from either her mum or sister in almost that long.

"It sounded better than saying I decided to end it before you mother tried to end me," Dad says, the corner of his mouth turned up in a tiny smile.

Lucy finds herself laughing and then Dad's laughing too and that's the end of that discussion.

She goes back to Hogwarts that September and studies just as hard as she always has. She cheers for Fred and Teddy at Quidditch and tries to keep an eye out for Jamie and Roxanne. Professor Flitwick recommends her for an award for her work in Charms.

When she comes home for Christmas, Dad sits her down again, looking even more nervous than the last time they'd sat like that.

"I've been seeing someone," he tells her. It almost looks like it's physically painful for him to meet her eyes. "I wanted to tell you before you found out some other way."

"Thank you," she says and smiles. She's always been able to calm him down by smiling and acting like everything's normal and she's glad to find that it still works.

A week later, Dad introduces her to Oliver Wood. Lucy smiles and shakes his hand and says, "Pleased to meet you," and Oliver tells jokes over dinner and Dad relaxes enough to take off his tie and Lucy has never been happier to see her father so happy.

**second-rate version of someone else.**

Molly is, unsurprisingly, alone when the letter from Lucy comes. Mum had a date last night and didn't bother to come home. Molly's sure if she checked her voicemail that there'd be a message there, but she'd rather not hear her mother's flimsy excuses. It's not like Molly doesn't understand the desire for a good, no string attached shag every once in a while.

The letter comes through the mail slot in the front door with the rest of the post, with the bills and adverts and postcards from Aunt Lizzie on holiday in Spain. There's no return address on the envelope, though it's addressed to Molly Weasley, so there's really no need for a return address to tell her who it's from; Molly's not gone by the name Weasley since she was twelve years old and both she and Mum took Mum's maiden name.

She thinks about just throwing it away without even opening it, but her curiosity gets the better of her. It's been almost five years since Lucy's last letter, which went unread like all the rest, and Molly's almost certain her sister's written her on more than just a lark.

The envelope opens easily. The letter is short, not quite half a page long.

_Molly,_

I'm only writing to wish you a happy birthday. Seventeen is an important age; we're both adults now. I just wanted to let you know that there'll be a birthday party at the Burrow once we're all home from Hogwarts for the summer. I'd love if you'd come. I miss you something fierce. Dad misses you, too, and there's someone you should meet.

Please come home, Molly.

xoxo,  
Lucy

Home? Molly was never at home with her father's family and their magic and their superior attitudes towards her and her mother. Lucy was always too blind to see it, though, was always too much a part of the group to realize that her sister was being excluded.

Molly refolds the letter carefully and replaces it in its envelope before dropping the whole thing in with the paper recycling.

**the life in your years.**

Oliver's sitting alone at the table with the sports section of the paper, a mug of tea, and a plate of toast when Lucy wanders into the kitchen not much past eight in the morning.

"I didn't think I'd see you until well into the morning," he says, flicking his wand at the stove. The aroma of bacon wafts across the room. "I'm fairly certain your dad slept for nearly a whole day after he got home after finishing his NEWTs."

"I'm too used to being up early," she says, stealing a slice of his toast and dancing out of reach of his swatting hand. "Is Dad already at work? I thought he took the week off."

"Some emergency only he could deal with," Oliver says with a sigh and Lucy laughs. "He said he should be home by lunch, though." With another flick of his wand, the bacon transfers itself from the stove to the table.

"Let's kidnap him after breakfast," Lucy says through a bite of bacon, and now it's Oliver's turn to laugh.

"Let's," Oliver agrees and they touch their bacon together in a greasy toast.

Dad puts up only a token resistance when they finally make it to his office and Lucy's able to talk him and Oliver into an impromptu visit to the Burrow and lunch with Gran, who plies them with homemade cakes and biscuits and toffees well into the afternoon.

It's one of the best days Lucy can ever remember having.

**the end.**

**Author's Note:**

> Section titles are from the following sources.  
> "_Hope is the biggest lie_ there is, and it is the best" – Steven Spielberg's _Taken_  
> "It's about _sisters who never write back_ and people who never listen" – Tim O'Brien, _The Things They Carried_  
> "Nothing lasts forever. _The only permanence is death_" – Matthew Stover, _Traitor_  
> "_Firm as a habit_ i struggle to shed" – Iron &amp; Wine, "Homeward, These Shoes"  
> "Be a first-rate version of yourself and not a _second-rate version of someone else_." – Judy Garland  
> "In the end, it's not the years in your life that count, but _the life in your years_." – Abraham Lincoln


End file.
